9 posts and columns on Xoopit

Voices

Almost Famous: Ben Zotto of Cocoa Box Design

in News on May 28, 2010 at 12:05 pm PT

This week, we coffee’d at Coupa Cafe on the Stanford University campus to interview Ben Zotto. He’s the mind behind Cocoa Box Design, the app company responsible for Penultimate, a sleeper hit at the iPad App Store. Ben is developing popular software that is just a little outside of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’s vision for his “magical” device. That doesn’t seem to bother Zotto though.

Weekend Update 2.20.10–Set It and Forget It Edition

in News on February 20, 2010 at 3:33 pm PT

We’re all about value and ease of use at AllThingsD. That’s why, if you keep reading right now, you’ll get all of the following. You’ll get the Walt’s Personal Technology column with the full line of Mossberg’s Mailbox and Mossberg Solution accessories. You’ll also get a full installment of Boomtown, complete with the snark and analysis you rely on. But wait, there’s more!

The Start-Up Whisperer: Michael Dearing Is the Hottest Angel Investor You've Never Heard Of

in News on February 16, 2010 at 8:30 am PT

While you might have heard of the acquisitions of Aardvark and AdMob by Google, Xoopit by Yahoo and Mixer Labs by Twitter, you might not have heard about the quiet angel investor they all have in common. And even in the loud echo chamber of Silicon Valley, Harrison Metal’s Michael Dearing likes it that way.

The One-Year Report Card of Yahoo’s Carol Bartz–Product Innovation: D From Readers, A From Sheila and C- From BoomTown

in News on January 20, 2010 at 1:05 am PT

Yesterday, BoomTown asked a question on Twitter about what grade people thought I should give Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz for product innovation, because I was torn about what the grade should be. One main reason: Bartz inherited a company that has been suffering from a serious and chronic case of product constipation, after many years of leading the Web in new and innovative offerings. With every other Web competitor innovating wildly in 2009, the lack of spark from Yahoo has become worrisome.
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Yahoo Confirms Xoopit Purchase

in News on July 22, 2009 at 5:44 pm PT

Yahoo confirmed the news–first reported by BoomTown and in The Wall Street Journal last night–that it was buying Xoopit, the San Francisco social email company. And it did so in both a blog post and on Twitter, as you can see here: @karaswisher @jvascellaro Your scoops confirmed http://bit.ly/gpOT2. Well, thanks! But we are already onto new scoops, so try to keep up! The price for the acquisition, which Yahoo did not reveal, was about $20 million, according to sources.
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Yahoo to Acquire Xoopit for About $20 Million

in News on July 21, 2009 at 9:00 pm PT

Yahoo plans on announcing Thursday that it has bought Xoopit for a price in the $20 million range, according to several sources, one of its first acquisitions in a long while. Reached late this afternoon by BoomTown, a Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment about the purchase. Xoopit did not respond to emails earlier today. But sources said it was a done deal to buy the San Francisco-based social email start-up that finds photos, videos, links and other files in email so that users can surface and then share them. Xoopit’s investors–Accel Partners and Foundation Capital, along with several angel investors–have pumped about $6.5 million into the company since 2006.
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Yahoo Execs Tapan Bhat and Ash Patel Talk About Yahoo's Open and Social Launch

in News on December 16, 2008 at 2:05 pm PT

Here’s a video interview I did with top Yahoo execs Tapan Bhat and Ash Patel yesterday, after Yahoo finally launched a lot of the new open and social elements that it has long said it was injecting into its most popular products. The initiatives Yahoo finally released into the wild have been long in the making, first discussed as just vaporware by Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Now, after the longest of gestation periods, they arrived yesterday, in an impressive rollout.

A Look-See at Yahoo's New Open and Social Launch!

in News on December 16, 2008 at 2:04 pm PT

Yesterday, Yahoo held a San Francisco event where it finally launched a lot of the new open and social elements that it has long said it was injecting into its most popular products. (BoomTown also interviewed top Yahoo execs Tapan Bhat and Ash Patel about the moves.) For a look-see, here is an official Yahoo video about the launch and some screenshots of the changes.

Yahoo Opens Its Open Strategy With Mail, Toolbar, My Yahoo and Media

in News on December 15, 2008 at 12:19 pm PT

After a week of bleeding purple, a heavily bandaged Yahoo has regrouped to roll out its vaunted Open Strategy. At an event in San Francisco today, the company introduced “socialized” upgrades to Yahoo Mail, Toolbar, My Yahoo, Yahoo TV and Yahoo Music. Each service now features social enhancements that essentially transform the experience of using them into one more akin to social networking.